PLO & Omaha Equity Calculator

What is PLO equity?

PLO equity is your share of the pot if the hand were dealt to showdown over and over. If AAKK double-suited beats KKQQ double-suited on 69 of every 100 runouts, it has 69% equity. The catch in Omaha: your final 5-card hand must use exactly 2 of your hole cards and exactly 3 board cards— never 1, never 3, and never "playing the board". A Hold'em calculator that ignores this rule produces badly wrong numbers (it would let A♠K♠Q♠x count a flush with only two spades on board). This calculator enforces the 2+3 rule on every single evaluation.

Why PLO equities run closer than Hold'em

Compare the biggest cooler in each game, computed with this calculator's engine:

• → Hold'em: A♠A♥ vs K♠K♥ is 82.6% vs 17.4% (exact, all 1,712,304 boards).
• → 4-card PLO: A♠K♠A♥K♥ vs K♦Q♦K♣Q♣ — the best hand in the game against a premium hand — is only 69.1% vs 30.9% (exact, all 1,086,008 boards).

The reason is combinatorics. Four hole cards contain 6 different two-card holdings(C(4,2) = 6), so every PLO hand is effectively six Hold'em hands sharing one board. Someone always has a piece: wraps, flush draws, backdoors, and redraws mean the "dominated" hand keeps live outs on almost every flop. That's why in PLO you'll rarely see preflop equities beyond 70/30 between playable hands, while Hold'em routinely produces 80/20s — and it's why pot-limit betting (not stack-off-preflop no-limit) suits the format.

Worked example: aces vs a rundown

Enter A♠K♠A♥K♥ for Player 1 and T♦9♦8♣7♣ (a double-suited rundown) for Player 2, leave the board empty, and hit Calculate. The engine returns roughly 60% vs 40% (300,000-trial run: 60.2 / 39.8). The best starting hand in PLO is barely a 3-to-2 favorite against a mid rundown.

Now use the number: say both players have $100 stacks and the rundown pots it to $3.50, aces re-pot, and $50 ends up in the middle by the river with the rundown needing to call $50 to win $150. That call needs 25% equity ($50 ÷ $200) — and preflop the rundown had 40%. This is the core PLO lesson: coordinated hands are almost never in terrible shape preflop, so PLO plays bigger, closer, and swingier than Hold'em. Weaken the rundown's structure, though, and it collapses — the famous near-coinflip A♠A♥7♦2♣ (bare aces, rainbow) vs T♥9♥8♠7♠ comes out 50.4 / 49.6 in our engine, matching the classic published result that bad aces are a literal flip against a good rundown.

4 vs 5 vs 6 cards: how the combinations explode

5-card PLO (usually spread as Big O) and 6-card PLO keep the same 2+3 rule — only the number of two-card holdings inside your hand grows:

(The ×10 is C(5,3) = 10 ways to pick 3 board cards.) More hole cards compress equities even further. Running the same AAKK vs KKQQ core with brick sidecards through this engine: 69.1% in 4-card, 67.1% in 5-card, 64.8% in 6-card. Every extra card gives the underdog more ways to connect, so 5- and 6-card pots are even more about draws, blockers, and redraws than standard PLO. One honesty note: Big O is usually dealt hi-lo split — this calculator scores the high hand only, which is your full-pot equity in high-only games and your high-half equity in split games.

How to use this calculator

1. 1. Pick a mode — 4-Card PLO (default), 5-Card (Big O), or 6-Card PLO.
2. 2. Enter each player's hole cards from the card grid (2-6 players).
3. 3. Optionally add board cards — flop, turn, or river for postflop equity.
4. 4. Calculate — a Web Worker runs the Monte Carlo (30,000 / 20,000 / 14,000 trials by mode) without freezing the page. Results are typically within ~0.6-0.9 points of exact equity.

New to the variant? Start with our What is Omaha Poker (PLO)? guide for rules, starting-hand structure, and the classic Hold'em-to-PLO mistakes. For Hold'em, Pineapple, or mixed spots, the general odds & equity calculator covers all variants in one tool.

Frequently asked questions